Ares vs Hera

Recap

Battle of the shortest names of Gods. Except that Zeus is also a four-letter name, and Zeus did play Hera earliest this year, so it’s tied for the game with the shortest names.

Area and Hera are also just one letter away from being palindromes of each other.

And if you combined their names together, it would be Hares, which sounds like Harry’s, which is a company that makes razors. Also, the oldest gay-owned and operated bar in LA is Oil Can Harry’s.

I’m here to give you the most important facts of your day.

And now, here to give you a splendid recap of their game Thursday night is Hera’s Stephanie Hicks, who is no longer on crutches and walking very well:

Dear Readers, My apologies as now it’s been a few days I’m afraid the expectations are that this recap is gonna be creative and great… and it’s just not.

Hera/Pink, my team, the goddess of women, is a really fun team. Everyone is kind and positive and I like seeing them every week and hopefully they like seeing me! Unfortunately we have been plagued by injuries and absences, and we only had two male subs, and while I had cajoled three female subs into coming out – I had to give two, Buster and Jeni Kwok, to Ares. [Cause that’s what you do… Kumbha!!!]

Ares/Maroon, Dan & Maggie’s team, the goddess of war, is a super strong team. A combo of young athletic people with names like “McNicholls” “Johns” and “Ben” [seriously they have three Bens]. They have both speed and handling skills – I think former Aviator David Conlon was like, what, their number four pick? And guys he’s really good.

So it’s no surprise that Ares/Maroon came out strong and broke through Pink/Hera’s zone with chilly swings and a well-placed hammer over the middle to one of the many tall people on their team…. Ares’ ladies Jordan and Melissa split the endzone and scored easily. Hera/Pink fired back and scored, but a lot less easily, to make it 1-1. Ares/Maroon called the 2-point power and we debated taking a Johns Bros but then, the other one would just go on… sigh. Cody tried to persuade us he wasn’t a threat by saying “I’m tired…” Hahahahahahahahahhahahaa… we decided against this…. We threw zone again, unsuccessfully and they scored to go up 3-1.

Ares/Maroon was at full force and made very few mistakes. We traded points …Garrett threw a sweet score to Hera/Pink’s Dan — who is super speedy and was getting open all night — but unfortunately he went down with an injury and was out, putting us down to one male sub versus Ares/Maroon’s full roster. At this point I think it was 7-3.

Hera/Pink used sneaky Nahall, with Garrett and Skipper’s awesome throws to score two in a row. Then we called the power to steal Armand from Hades/Black on the other field. Armand proceeded to completely sweat through Nate’s jersey in about 30 seconds and not touch the disc at all — but we scored to bring it to 7-6! What?? Ares then took half 8-6. Hera/Pink came out after half on offense and had a chance to come back and tie it up… but sadly Hera/Pink only scored one point after half and Ares/Maroon ran away with 15-7.

Some highlights:

Melissa McNicholls was strong and consistent, getting some scores with assists from her husband. Also they came out to the bar, which makes them a perfect frisbee couple in my opinion.

The Dan Peryaha/Clint Wehling matchup. People in LA don’t know Clint yet cause he just moved here from Colorado so I’ll tell you why the Dan/Clint matchup was so awesome. They’re both Captains (I can’t count this though cause Clint protests every time I call him a Captain). And they’re both 1) tall 2) large 3) in their 30’s 4) handlers who, 5) like to huck it and 6) don’t really feel like playing much defense. They also 7) are fun to hang out with at the bar. It’s a perfect match-up! So Clint gets sick of Dan hucking and went straight-up on him all night. Fun fact about Clint — the ONLY defense he’ll claim to be good at is getting hand blocks. And he usually averages a couple a game. But in this case the hand block Clint got, Dan was super happy about cause served to slow the disc down so it floated right to Jeni Kwok. Sigh…

Speaking of Jeni Kwok — I was super sad to have to give her to Ares cause the lady caught and threw at least 4 scores. WTF Jeni, since when did you get the throws?? Stop that.

Ares’ cheer to the tune of the ants go marching one by one, Her-a, Her-a, was hands down the best cheer of the season.

Cody Johns taco’ing the disc while getting an awesome D on… Nahall? This is a highlight because both teams gave him so much shit. Cody made a totally safe play, but hit the disc SUPER hard into the concrete out the back of the endzone because he thought Garrett was tight with him, but Garrett had backed off, and so Cody’s level of intensity was comical. To his credit, he totally apologized and responded well to the heckling over the destructing of Steve Loh’s St Pat’s Hat. But speaking of Steve Loh, that brings me to my —

Lowlight:

Hera was down like 12-7 and Ares’ hucked it to a wide-open man for a score … who then spiked the disc… right into the feet of Hera’s Steve Loh. Total accident that the Ares man felt terrible about and apologized profusely for, but it’s a lowlight in my opinion because it brings up something which I think is a problem overall at summer league: Spiking the disc.

STEPHANIE ‘S RANT TO PEOPLE WHO SPIKE DISCS STARTS HERE ****

I’ve played ultimate competitively for 18 years, since the fall of 1999 at USCD. What I love about this sport is the Spirit of the Game: you can be SUPER competitive but people were encouraged to err on the side of a spirited call. To send the disc back. To make the safe play. To be friendly with the other team. To make it an INCLUSIVE sport. To put it all behind us at the end of the day and get a beer at the bar. And to me, spiking the disc at SUMMER LEAGUE [not talking about club, or college or AUDL] NEVER comports with either the spirit of the game, or the goals of the league.

I know that spiking to some is as expression of victory after a hard fought point, but let me be frank, at Summer League you come off like a dick. Because you’re usually younger, faster, and better than 99% of us out there. [I know that’s not always true, which is why I said “usually.”]. And guess what, we all know you’re better than us. It’s really not that big of a surprise that you scored in summer league. And I know you’re probably not thinking, “I’m gonna be an asshole…” SPIKE. But when you’re playing in a FUN league that has varying skill levels of men and women, you need to be aware that to a lot of us, that’s how it comes off.

Also there’s usually a defender with you in the end zone and to them, who just ran their ass off, your “celebration” is a smack in the face. And why not just turn around and say “nice D”? Or “great run.” Shake their hand. ‘Cause that person will probably be on your team at some point in the future, and they might not show up to games because you — whether intentional or not — came off like a dick and they don’t want to play with you.

And I’m by no means asking for some rule, but what I am asking, is that the players out there who regularly spike the disc, take a beat and think about it before you do it at summer league. Ask yourself it’s that’s really the most spirited thing to do? And ask yourself if that’s how you want to represent yourself, LAOUT, and the sport of ultimate to outsiders. And if you see no problem with it, then you better be ready to show up at the bar, and buy someone a beer when your spike hits them.

****END OF STEPHANIE’S RANT

EPILOGUE:

Guys, I didn’t know how much I missed the Robin Hood until I was there last night. The waitress was salty and condescending. You had to dodge darts to get to the bathroom. The drinks and food are mediocre at best. God, it’s perfect. They carded me and David Conlon, but not Nate… amazing. But in all seriousness we should have an unofficial party Thursday there soon.

Oh, Robin Hood. At 18 years and counting (cause we went once after Winter League I think) it’s gotta be the bar I’ve frequented more in my life than any other one ever. It’s like the worst bar for all the reasons Steph mentioned, and yet it’s the best.

Steph said everything on the spiking thing. Nothing more for me to add.

Very clever cheer. I want to know who came up with that one. Get your public credit.

Also have a recap from the previously mentioned Dan Perahya of Ares:

Soooo

Steph is the other captain, I’m not even going to try to recap. Instead, I’ll give you my random thoughts at 1:30 am.

Both powers worked in the first half. We used the two point thing when it was tied 1-1. They stole Armand toward the end of the half. He didn’t get a d or touch the disc, but they scored so power success I guess.

Sepulveda basin field is my new favorite, except they cut all the lights at once so you don’t have a chance to get your stuff. It’s a rough life for ultimate players.

Jerseys are awesome! Dave Conlon doesn’t like the sleeve length on the jerseys, but he is allowed to be wrong.

I’m curious if the parity of the league is still better this year than the past. Can you do some numbers crunching and spit out some attention diverting stats please.

You got it sir. Coming right up. Let’s even break it down week by week.